


Salt of the Earth

by yaycoffee



Category: Joan of Arcadia, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaycoffee/pseuds/yaycoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean have come to stop the something that is killing co-eds in Nebraska, Joan and Grace are right in the line of fire, and God hasn't so much left the building, as he's being a pain in Joan's ass, giving her a mission for her first college spring break that might just save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm making time my bend to my will here. For the purposes of this story, Joan and Grace are freshmen in college, making this almost two years since the series ended. I've assumed that the Spiritual Battle storyline that would have been in season three has been fought and won. There are Supernatural spoilers through 4x22, and any and all of the Spn plot stuff is totally AU now that season 5 has come and gone.

**THEN:**  
  
 _Joan of Arcadia_ : At the end of the final season, Joan and Co. were getting set up for a big bad spiritual battle, and the agent of the devil was Ryan. For the purposes of this fic, we assume that battle has been fought and won (by Joan and God), but it leaves Joan no stranger to the idea of evil.  
  
 _Supernatural_ : Sam got played by Hell. Dean got played by Heaven. Sam let out Lucifer. The Apocalypse started. They are both a little bitter about the whole thing.  
  
  
 **NOW:**  
  
She smiled as she typed the last word. Finally, after two years of writing and research, she'd finished it. When it finished printing, she put it neatly into her folder and put the folder safely into her bag. She caught a quick glimpse of herself as she got ready to go. She smoothed down her fly-aways and checked her tee shirt for coffee stains before hastily ramming her feet into her tennies. In a flash, she slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, switched off the light, and left her dorm room.  
  
Tori Amos sung in her ears as she walked across the campus, just starting to buzz with the guests and chatter that the conference was bringing. She turned the corner on the pathway heading toward the Women's Studies building. She saw the light on in the professor's office through the window, and she allowed herself a deep breath to calm her nerves.  
  
She only noticed a slight shift in the wind as she walked inside the breezeway. Was it getting colder? She thought she'd remembered the weatherman saying something about a cold snap, right?  
  
The chatter that came from behind her was now out of sight, and there was nothing but dark shadow and an empty campus before her. She'd never really noticed how many nooks and crannies there were in the breezeway before now--lots of little corners, and she felt unsettled. With another deep breath, she reminded herself that she was almost inside, just up the walk and around the corner now. She was on campus. She was safe.  
  
Did she hear something? She pulled the earbud out of one ear. A faint sound--one she couldn't quite name--was coming from just outside the breezeway. She pulled the other earbud out and slung the chord around the back of her neck. She could still hear the music, all tinny and wrong now. She could hear the soft sound her tennis shoes made on the pavement as she walked through the arched doorway that led to the walk outside. She looked around for the source of the noise, but she only saw the shadows of trees playing with each other on the ground and long bars of light and dark as the campus lights lit and backlit the buildings around her.  
  
She listened again for the sound, but heard nothing except the sound of her own breathing and the high twang of music still coming from her headphones. Seeing nothing, she shrugged her shoulders, putting the earbuds back in her ears.  
  
She turned on her heel to head back to the professor's office, and when she did, she noticed the crunch of something under her tennies. Looking down, she saw white flakes around her feet, and when she bent down to investigate, she noticed the trail of white that followed her from the breezeway. When she touched it, it was a fine powder, almost like confectioner's sugar. She watched as the wind blew it from the path.  
  
She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, and the only thing she wanted was to get inside, to get to the office, to turn in her paper. She stood up quickly and started back, now at a run, but before she quite made it to the path, she felt as though something had hit her in the back, between her shoulder blades. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. The last thing she noticed was the taste of copper in her mouth and a red stain spreading quickly across the front of her shirt.  
  
She didn't feel the crack of her knees as they hit the ground, nor the crack of her skull.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
"So, tell me again why we're not going to _the beach_ like everyone else." Joan fished around in the space behind her car seat for a bag of chips. They were on top of the pile, so she found them easily and began to eat. Through a mouthful she managed to continue, using a Dorito as a pointing apparatus for emphasis. "I mean. First college spring break? Beach. It's just what you're supposed to do."  
  
Annoyed, Grace grabbed at the bag, snatched it away from her and quickly buried it behind Joan's seat. "Can it, Girardi. You can join all the mindless fratboy drones in Cancun next year."  
  
"Whatever. I don't see what is so interesting about Nebraska anyway. Look!" Joan waved her entire arm out of the open window, pointing at their surroundings. "Fields. It's all just. Fields." She wrinkled her nose and made a display of rolling the window up. "And cows."  
  
"Look. You didn't have to come. But this conference is important to me. How often does a college freshman get asked to read a paper on the same bill as Gloria Steinem?"  
  
Joan knew she'd rather spend her time with Grace than with a bunch of strangers in Mexico or Florida or wherever. Grace had spent so much time and energy on the paper, and there was no way she would miss this. Joan smiled and simply replied, "Yeah, yeah," and turned up the radio.  
  
An hour later, the scenery finally began to change. Farms gave way to auto junkyards and pawn shops, and then finally, the interstate widened by a couple lanes, and chain restaurants and mega-stores were on both sides of the freeway. They saw signs for the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and when they exited from the highway, they pulled up to a stop next to an old black car, engine rumbling loud enough that she felt it in her stomach. The driver of the car caught her staring and gave her a huge grin, lighting up his entire face. He was pretty hot. She felt the blush as it crept up to her cheeks. Maybe Nebraska wouldn't be so bad after all, she thought.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Grace turned the car into the parking lot of the motel they'd be staying at, just a couple of miles off campus. It was a crappy little place, old and outdated from the outside and even worse inside. They only stayed long enough to check in and drop their stuff off in the room before Grace had to report to the conference big shots on campus, and since the television only had two working channels, Joan decided to tag along.  
  
The campus was alive with activity, peppered by a few students who'd stayed back for whatever reason, but mostly overrun with people obviously there for the conference: Pockets of people with hair that was clean, shirts that were pressed, and turning campus maps while curiously looking at the buildings around them.  
  
"Hey, Girardi! Check that out." Grace hit her on the arm with the back of her hand. Joan winced and rubbed the spot on her arm.  
  
"What! And, ow!" But, the minute Joan looked up, she saw what had captured Grace's attention. There were a hoard of people and police gathered right outside one of the buildings, and an ambulance was sitting in the middle of the lawn and walking paths.  
  
"That looks serious. I wonder what happened," Grace said as they both continued to stare at the scene, but she suddenly stopped to check her watch. "Dammit. I'm gonna be late. I'll meet you here when I'm done. It should only be an hour or so, but I'll text you."  
  
"That's cool," Joan said. "Good luck!"  
  
Grace took a deep breath and smiled. "Thanks." She checked her own map quickly before walking out of sight.  
  
Joan moved closer to the crowd gathered near the ambulance. There was a section marked off with yellow caution tape and a tarp-covered lump right in the middle. Joan tasted something sick in the back of her throat, and though she wanted to turn away, her curiosity was stronger, so she took a few tentative steps forward. A couple of uniformed policemen were taking statements from people, and there were detectives in suits like her dad wears, along with the coroner and paramedics.  
  
She hadn't made it two whole steps over the tape before one of the cops spotted her and began walking her way.  
  
"Sorry, ma'am, but I'm going to have to ask you to step back." He was only a little taller than she was, but stocky and muscled--like a bulldog. His uniform was a little tight across his chest, and his badge caught the sun and twinkled in the daylight. His blond hair was cut short enough that she could see the pink of his scalp through it.  
  
"Oh," Joan said. "Sorry. I... I just..." Her voice trailed off under his gaze, but her eye caught another glimpse of the tarped-over lump and she blurted, "what happened here?" though her voice sounded not much louder than a whisper.  
  
The policeman put a hand on her shoulder, steering her back out of the tape line, removing the tarp from her line of vision. "I can't discuss official police business in this stage of the investigation." He looked at her intensely. "I am glad you're here, Joan."  
  
"God?" Of course it was God. She couldn't even go on a fake spring break vacation in peace. That just figured.  
  
"I am," he said.  
  
"Well, I'm glad someone's glad I'm here. I think I should be in Mexico, you know--soaking in the sun and partying on the beach, instead of stuck here in the middle of the land of corn and cows and, apparently, death."  
  
He did not smile. "It's good that you are here for Grace. Friends are more important than exotic spring break locations. I'm proud of you, Joan."  
  
She let herself smile a little at that. "You are?"  
  
"Of course. You are doing well in school, and you have been a good friend to Grace. It's wonderful to see you living up to your potential."  
  
"Um... thanks."  
  
"Don't forget about your schoolwork, Joan. Even on vacation. You have that paper coming up for your history class."  
  
"Leave it to you to take all the fun out of spring break."  
  
"Not all of it. It's important to read up for your paper while you're here--they've got a great library. Grace will be busy, and you'll have a little extra time." He seemed to take in the look of complete disappointment in her face before he smiled a little. "But, it's also important to rest. I made an entire day for it, if you'll recall... though you're usually doing your homework for Monday then." He did smile in earnest this time. "It's good to meet new people in a new place. You don't have to be on a beach for that. I hear spring break is a great time to _meet people_."  
  
"Wait a minute," Joan said, trying to fill in the blanks. She still wished he would just come out and say what he meant. He still spoke mostly in riddle. "Are you talking about boys? Are you saying you want me to meet... guys?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"God is telling me to meet guys?" She needed to make extra sure she'd heard him right.  
  
"Yes." The radio at his belt began making noise, and he unclipped it. "And get ready for that paper," he said, already making his way back toward the scene, waving as he went.  
  
Joan threw up her hands in frustration. "Meet guys and research. Great."  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Dean stepped out of the car, stretching deeply as Sam got out on the other side, the door squeaking a little as it shut. They'd been on the road since yesterday morning, and Dean was ready for a nap and a shower, but as he saw the crowd of people at the crime scene, he knew all of that would probably have to wait. He and Sam had come from Mississippi, where Castiel had sent them to try and stop the angels and demons there from wiping out a whole town of people in the middle of their giant pissing contest.  
  
He was getting pretty damn tired of the whole thing--the apocalypse was nothing like he thought. He'd envisioned hell on earth and fire and desolation, but for the most part it was the same ol' crap they'd been dealing with for years. But now he had to deal with the fucking angels and their fucking strategy, of which he was a key player but the last to know any damn thing.  
  
They managed to hold off Lucifer and his demons there in Mississippi, but both he and Sam were a little worse for wear because of it. He rubbed at the bandage around his ribs, thinking it was about time for some more Advil. Damn the angels, and damn their war, and damn Sam for making it all harder--if he would have just _listened_ to him instead of that demon bitch, they might not be here now. But really, Dean knew he should just damn himself for not being able to just walk away from the whole fucking thing. He was so tired.  
  
They walked together down the path on campus, sun bright in his eyes.  
  
"Any idea what we got here," he asked Sam, not quite looking him.  
  
"Not exactly, but it sounds like a haunting." Sam replied, rifling through a small stack of papers from a file folder. "Don't know much more than what Bobby already told us. This is the third death here in two weeks. Each victim attacked from behind."  
  
"How do we know it's not just some asshole frat kid who's had too many Red Bulls?"  
  
"Well, all of the victims were completely surrounded by salt. All of the victims died on campus, but there are no witnesses."  
  
"Hmm," Dean said, furrowing his brow as he and Sam got close enough to the scene to actually find out some information. He still wasn't convinced. This sounded like it could be regular ol' crazy-person-with-a-knife kind of deal. But, the salt--that was definitely weird. "Think it might be a hunter? Rings of salt, Sam? No spirit would do that."  
  
"I don't know. Why would hunters be after normal college kids? None of these girls seemed to be into anything strange--no occult or witchcraft that I can tell from the file, and Bobby was pretty sure it was a spirit when I talked to him."  
  
Dean thought about all they owed Bobby--all he had done for them. Apparently he had a friend in town that he owed a favor, and checking this out was the least they could do.  
  
They hadn't had a chance to put on their FBI monkey suits, so they were both still wearing jeans and tee shirts. Sam pulled two press passes out of his back pocket and handed one to Dean. Then he retrieved a reporter's notepad from the waistband of his jeans and pulled the pen from the spiral that ran across the top.  
  
"Aw, man. They don't tell reporters shit." Dean scowled as he looped the pass around his neck.  
  
"Better than nothing. If we'd taken the time to change, they'd have cleared the scene. We need to try and get a look at the body."  
  
Dean groaned, counting at least a dozen cops and detectives and on-scene forensic types. "We're not gettin' past these guys. We might as well get some shut eye and break into the morgue tonight."  
  
"C'mon, Dean. We'll try this, and if it doesn't work, then we can break into the morgue."  
  
"Fine."  
  
Dean looked around for a female officer. He found one, a pretty redhead, snapping pictures. He stepped across the tape closest to her. It only took her a second to notice him, and she immediately dropped the camera to her side and told Dean, stern-faced, that he needed to get behind the tape.  
  
"Law enforcement personnel only, sir," she said.  
  
Looking into her eyes, Dean donned his very best aw-shucks grin. "Sorry, ma'am," he said. The grin never left his face. "I'm workin' on a story for the Omaha World Herald, and my editor will have my balls if I don't come back with something." He tried his hardest to look like a harmless lackey, just needing one little favor.  
  
Her face remained stoic for a minute. He grinned at her again. He knew he was in when he saw her blush and look down, trying to break eye contact or hide the smile she was starting to show, or both. She looked back at him and sighed. "All right. But no pictures. You have two minutes."  
  
"Thank you so much. You have no idea how much you've saved my life."  
  
She shook her head, pulling her camera back up to her face. She returned to taking pictures.  
  
When he knelt down, the salt was the first thing he noticed. He pinched a few of the granules in his fingers--it was super fine--almost like a powder. He lifted his fingers to his lips, just to make sure. It was salt, and it obviously used to be in almost a complete outline around the body. Some of it had gotten shifted in the investigation--he could see footprints and snags in the pattern where the body had been jostled or the tarp had disturbed it, but it was fine enough that even where the top layer had gone, it settled into the pores of the concrete--pattern still noticeable.  
  
No spirit could have gotten through that much salt--at least no spirit that he'd ever heard of. No hunter would use salt that fine--everyone he knew used rock salt. He sighed deeply, lifting the tarp a little more to see the wound that had killed the girl. It was obviously done with a blade of some sort. There was a single wound in her back that had pierced a lung and caused a lot of bleeding. Dean scrunched his face. He didn't know who or what had done this, but now he really wanted to find out.  
  
"Sir," the red-headed police officer said, pulling him from his investigation. He'd felt like he just got started. He fought the urge to verbally swear. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave now. I hope you got enough for your article."  
  
"Thanks," Dean said. He winked at her before ambling back over the yellow tape toward Sam. Sam was talking to some other police workers, quickly scribbling notes on his little reporter pad. When Sam saw him coming, he dismissed the people he was talking to with a smile and a nod of his head.  
  
"Well," Sam said. "What'd you see?"  
  
"Well, this is definitely weird. Body is surrounded by salt, but not a normal protective ring. It's almost like a pattern--solid outline surrounding the body. And the salt is finer than anything I've ever seen. I still don't know what kind of spirit could get through it, though."  
  
Sam looked thoughtful for a minute.  
  
"What about you?" Dean asked. "What did you get?"  
  
They began walking toward the car as Sam talked. "Not much, really. Just that the victim's name was Ashley Gibson. No murder weapon found, no fingerprints, no evidence at all. She was a grad student here, and she had been scheduled to be one of the main presenters for the conference that they've got going on this week."  
  
"Conference?"  
  
"Yeah. Women's Studies. The campus is on spring break. Apparently Gloria Steinem is scheduled to speak in a few days. It's kind of a big deal."  
  
"Fantastic," Dean said with a sigh as he climbed behind the wheel of the Impala. "I guess that rules out fraternizing with the co-eds this week. All the hot chicks are in Cancun. Now there's just a buncha feminist, vegan, tree-huggers with hairy pits. No, thank you."  
  
Sam let out a little chuckle, settling in and closing the passenger door. "Next time, I guess, Lancelot."  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
"It smells funny in here," Joan said as she dug her iPod out of her bag. The motel was done in avocado green and what used to maybe be some shade of orange, but had since faded to something that probably wasn't even a color at all.  
  
"Yeah," Grace said. "Like someone barfed nachos or something."  
  
Joan made a face. "Gross."  
  
"You wanna get outta here for a little while? I was thinking..." She held up two shiny plastic cards.  
  
"You didn't," Joan said, smile lighting her face. She skipped over to Grace and grabbed one of the cards. She looked at it closely and jumped up and down. "You did! You got 'em! How much do I owe you?"  
  
"Not a thing, Girardi. You came all the way out here. I could at least get you a decent fake ID."  
  
Joan squealed and hugged her. Grace remained still and straight. "Hugging?" she asked, smirking. "Really?"  
  
Joan ignored her, spinning around and dancing. "And I'm supposed to meet guys! This is perfect!" she said.  
  
"What?" Grace asked, looking at her funny.  
  
"I mean. We. We're supposed to meet guys--it's spring break."  
  
"Right," Grace said, cautiously. "Whatever. I just want a drink."  
  
They found a little bar not far from the motel. It was, what Joan was learning, a typical campus bar, similar to the ones she'd gone to to see her friends' band play back home--smokey and small with sticky floors and dirty tables, loud music and cheap drinks. She knew she should probably be a little grossed out, but she had an amaretto sour in her hand, and she felt oddly free.  
  
Grace grumbled about the music, but mostly told Joan about the conference and how she was honored and nervous. Apparently, she'd be giving her presentation in a couple of days along with several other underclassmen from all over the country, but the top five would present again and get published in some sort of big deal journal.  
  
Joan never really expected she and Grace to even go to the same college, but it had just worked out that way. Adam had gone down to University of Texas to do art stuff on a full scholarship, and Joan was happy for him. He deserved something good after all that had happened. Spiritual warfare was hard, as Joan learned last year, but in the end Ryan (or whoever he really was) had finally left town, and things seemed to be okay. Adam had caught the brunt of the whole thing at the time, so it was good that he could go somewhere far away and just start over. She missed him though, and she still compared every new guy she met to him in some way. They never really measured up.  
  
As they were talking, two guys came over to their table. Both were really cute. She was liking this mission more and more.  
  
"Hi," one of them said. He was tall with a smile that she remembered. He was the guy from the black car. She had a hard time looking at him without openly gaping--he was maybe the hottest guy she'd ever seen in real life--sparkling green eyes and lashes that were not even fair for a guy to have, the kind of fit frame that comes from hard work, not a gym. "I'm Alex Lifeson, and this is Neil Peart."  
  
Joan smiled and held out her hand, but the look Grace shot her made her take it back. Grace snorted at the guy. "She's too young for you, dude," she said coolly, staring directly at him.  
  
If it were possible, his grin grew even wider. Usually guys ran away screaming when Grace was around, and Joan couldn't help but be a little impressed that he didn't. He just kept on, "We're reporters doing a story on the recent deaths on campus. Was wondering if either of you knew Ashley Gibson?"  
  
The words _no_ and _sorry_ were on the tip of Joan's tongue when Grace spoke. "Ashely Gibson?"  
  
The taller one--Neil said, "You knew her?" He had a softness in his voice and in his posture that reminded Joan of Adam. He was taller and broader than Alex, now that she really looked, but he seemed to actually take up less space. It was weird. Like Alex, he was also in incredibly shape. She fleetingly wondered if they did those insane competitions where really strong people pulled ten cars or an airplane or something.  
  
Grace shook her head. "No. Not really, but I knew _of_ her. She's had some articles published in some of the journals I read."  
  
"Are you here for the conference, then?" Neil asked.  
  
"Yeah," she said. "We go to school back east--just here for the week. Ashley was supposed to be a presenter." Grace looked down at the table, fiddled with a ratty cardboard coaster.  
  
Neil gave her a minute, looking at her calmly. Something in his demeanor felt easy and familiar. "Thank you for your time," he said.  
  
Joan smiled at him, and she noticed that Grace was smiling a little, too.  
  
"So you ladies are part of the conference, huh?" Alex asked. "Giving a presentation on bra burning?"  
  
Alex flinched, and a small grunt escaped his lips. Joan suspected Neil had just kicked him.  
  
She gave a small laugh and said, "Oh, no. Grace is presenting. But not me. I like my bras just fine."  
  
"What's your paper about?" Neil asked, looking at Grace with genuine interest.  
  
"This place needs more Zeppelin," Alex said and strolled off in the direction of the jukebox. Joan sat back and appreciated the view while Grace began telling Neil about her paper.  
  
After a few minutes, Joan began getting restless. She loved Grace, but she'd already heard about the paper. "I'm gonna get another round. You guys want?"  
  
"Sure," Grace said absently as she gestured emphatically at Neil while ranting about double standards in Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings. Joan walked up to the bar and waited for the guy to finish ringing up the girls a few feet down. She was still stoked about actually buying _drinks_. This spring break wasn't turning out so bad.  
  
"And what can I get for you," the bartender asked when he walked up to her.  
  
"Amaretto sour, vodka tonic, and two Budweisers," Joan said.  
  
"Make one of those an El Sol, if you got it," Alex said as he slipped onto the stool next to her and laid a twenty down on the bar.  
  
"Thanks," Joan said as the bartender went off to get the beers.  
  
"No problem," he said with a grin that crinkled the corner of his eyes. Joan felt her stomach flip a little.  
  
"Here you go," the bartender said as he set the drinks down and took the money. "You should drink some water, Joan."  
  
Joan rolled her eyes and headed toward the table with her and Grace's drinks.  
  
"The bartender has the hots for you," Alex teased.  
  
"What? Um, no."  
  
"Bartender remembers the name, means he wants to get in your pants."  
  
Joan shook her head. That was wrong on so many levels. She laughed, "Believe me. Not the case."  
  
"Whatever you say," Alex said with a wink.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Sam and Dean had talked to every person in the bar, but almost all of them were from out of town. Same story--they knew of Ashley, but they didn't know her. They were going to have to find out more about her--talk to a roommate or find someone on campus who knew her personally. When they got back to the hotel, Dean collapsed, fully clothed onto his bed. He was snoring in minutes. They hadn't slept in a bed for days.  
  
Sam stretched out on his bed, legs crossed, fingers laced behind his head, and he stared at the avocado and rust patterns of the peeling wall paper. He decided that a good hot shower might be the thing that would help, but even after being scrubbed and clean and back under the covers, sleep would not come. He hadn't slept well since Maryland.  
  
Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was a blood pattern on a stone floor and a pillar of light so bright it hurt his eyes, the reminder of what he'd done, how badly he'd let himself get played. Over and over in the quiet, all he can ever think about is what he did, all the ways he fucked up, and the guilt of it felt to him like an actual weight, tangible and heavy, crushing his chest, cracking his ribs, collapsing his lungs so that he has a hard time breathing.  
  
He slept fitfully for a couple of hours, and when he woke up, it was still mostly dark. He tossed and turned for a while before the restlessness would not let him lie down any longer. As quietly as he could, he gathered his jeans from the floor and pulled them on, grabbing a jacket on his way out the door. Outside, the pale promise of dawn lurked in the east, and the chill of the early morning made him draw his jacket a little tighter. He walked a few blocks before finding a donut shop, and he ordered two large coffees and half a dozen chocolate glazed.  
  
He walked slowly back to the motel, focusing his mind on the details of the case, what it could possibly be that was killing these kids. Nothing so far had added up.  
  
When he rounded the corner that led to their room, he noticed a girl kicking the hell out of the Coke machine. She was using every ounce of strength in her small frame. As he got closer, he recognized her as one of the people they'd talked to last night--one of the people who didn't know Ashley Gibson. He had to pass right by her, and he smiled at her the way you smile to strangers in passing.  
  
But, she said, "Neil, right?"  
  
Sam raised a coffee-leaden hand, plastic bag with the donut box dangling from his wrist. "Mornin'."  
  
"What are you doing here?" The breeze picked up a little, blowing long strands of brown hair into her face, pinking her cheeks. She wrapped her scarf a little more closely around her neck, tucked her hair behind her ears.  
  
"Went for breakfast. D--Alex and I are staying here." He shuffled his feet a little, but the lie came easily. "The paper doesn't give us the best per-diem."  
  
"Tell me about it. This place is a hole." Her face screwed up into the most animated display of exasperation and disgust. Then she put a hand on her hip and leaned forward a little, talking a little more softly. "Does your room smell like barfed nachos? 'Cause ours does."  
  
He had to chuckle a little. "No--ours is more eau de gym locker than nacho. I didn't get your name last night."  
  
"Oh, it's Joan. I'm Joan."  
  
"Nice to meet you then, Joan. That machine steal your boyfriend or something?"  
  
Joan sighed. "No. Just my dollar." She kicked it again. "If I don't get a soda soon, this sucker is going down."  
  
"Here," Sam said, handing over his coffees, setting the box of donuts down by his feet. "Let me see if I can help. What do you want?"  
  
Joan shook her head a little. "Uh... Coke?"  
  
"Right," Sam said, pressing the button for the Coke. He held it down and gave the machine a little shake and a firm shove in that spot that usually worked for him. He was no stranger to crappy motel Coke machines. A second later, he heard the tell tale thump of the bottle falling down.  
  
"Thanks," Joan said, handing the coffees back over and grabbing the Coke from the bottom. She met his eyes and said, "Thanks, Neil."  
  
"Don't mention it." The corner of his mouth twitched upward just barely as she walked away, scarf trailing behind her.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Fifteen minutes earlier, Joan had gone into the motel lobby demanding her money back. The night-shift worker had been gathering her things to leave, but she had known Joan's name, looked directly into her eyes, and told her to _try again_. She also told her to get started on her research this morning while Grace was busy and chided her for not drinking enough water. Joan had rolled her eyes, made a snippy comeback, but in the end, she decided to try the machine again.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Sam's phone vibrated in his pocket as he sat at a computer terminal in the main campus library. It was Dean. He'd been to talk to the girl's roommate. They found out she was set to get her masters degree in a couple of months, that she had been hand-picked to go to Harvard for a doctorate program, that she loved Tori Amos and eggplant parmigiana. She didn't have any enemies, didn't ascribe to any sort of religion, didn't like to dance. The roommate hadn't noticed any cold-spots or black ooze or anything else out of the ordinary before she died.  
  
"I don't know, Dean," Sam said. "Maybe this is just a regular ol' murder."  
  
"Well, you keep finding out what you can over in geekland. See what you can dig up on the other girls who were killed. I'll meet you there in a few minutes. Then we can go get some lunch. I'm starved."  
  
"Way ahead of you. See you soon." Sam turned his attention back to the screen in front of him. He'd managed to hack his way into the university's system, and he was already looking at the information for the other two dead girls. They were also very bright--a 3.8 and 4.0 respectively, and they both also had papers they were submitting to the conference. He knew this had to be the main connection, but he still couldn't find out anything without knowing who or what was doing the actual killing.  
  
When Dean turned up, he told him what he'd found. They printed off some information they thought they'd like to keep around and made their way toward the library door. On their way, Sam ran directly into someone carrying a stack of books taller than her head.  
  
The books tumbled to the ground, and she said, "Crap!" with as much force and gusto as could be fit into that one small word.  
  
"I'm so sorry," he said, bending down to help her. He began to stack the books on a nearby table.  
  
She was mumbling to herself as she gathered books back into a stack on a nearby table, saying, "Spring break. Should be on the friggin' beach, but nooooooo no no no, I'm stuck here carrying a bazillion books and--" she stopped muttering when she finally looked up. "Neil?" Her long hair had fallen into her face, and she was brushing it away, tucking it behind her ears.  
  
"Hi again, Joan. We have to stop meeting like this." He couldn't keep the little smirk from his lips. Dean gave him a pointed look, raising his eyebrows. He mouthed the word "jailbait." Sam gathered two books and set them with the others. He was trying his hardest to get his very best shut-the-hell-up-and-let-me-handle-this look on his face. "You remember Joan from the bar last night, don't you, Alex?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. Sure."  
  
"She and her friend are also staying at the same place we are."  
  
Joan's face had gone a funny sort of slack before she shook her head a little. "God," she said. Then she rolled her eyes and muttered, "Great."  
  
"Huh?" Dean replied.  
  
Joan stammered a little. "Sorry. Just. I'm supposed to... I mean... I think that... Do you -- I mean... Do you guys need any... help? With anything?"  
  
Dean was looking at her like she'd lost her mind, and Sam wrinkled his brow--not sure what to think. They needed help finding out who was killing these girls, but he doubted she would be much help there.  
  
"Nevermind," she said, waving her hands dismissively. "I've got to do some research on a paper I've got coming up for my history class."  
  
Sam pulled the book off the top-- _Indigenous Tribes of the Great Plains_. "That's no way to spend spring break," Sam said.  
  
"Believe me," Joan said, grabbing the book and waving it around for emphasis. "I _know_." She tossed the book back down on the table, grabbed her bag and about five other books, and made her way as best she could to the other side of the library.  
  
"She's a weird chick," Dean said after she was out of ear shot.  
  
"Yeah," Sam said, but something about her was intriguing--like there was more to her than what he could see. He looked in the direction that she'd gone off, weird feeling in his gut telling him that there was something almost _special_ about her.  
  
"So, what did you find out?" Dean asked, grabbing the file folder from Sam's hand as he took a seat. Sam grabbed it back with a sigh, but he sat down, too.  
  
"Well," he said, opening the folder. He spread out the pages on the table in front of them. "There were two other victims. Both killed on campus, right?" Sam pointed to the information sheets on the other two girls.  
  
"Yeah, Bobby told us this already."  
  
"Right, but both of them were also slotted to be presenters at the conference. The first victim, Jeanie Wilson, was actually heading up the on-campus committee to get the conference rooms ready. She died the night that they started setting everything up."  
  
"Okay, so the disturbance and moving to get stuff ready might anger a restless spirit. But, we still don't know who this bastard was."  
  
"I say we talk to Jeanie's roommates. See what we can find out. Maybe she's our connection."  
  
"But after lunch, right?"  
  
As they started to get up, a little old woman came by with a cart of books easily three times her size. She had a chin-length blonde bob and was wearing a boxy light blue cardigan that came straight out of the Mrs. Doubtfire collection. She looked at them both sternly behind thick glasses, giving her the appearance of an owl.  
  
"You boys just gonna leave that book on the table?" Her voice was a lot stronger that her frail looking frame indicated, and she suddenly did not look like the kind of lady you'd want to mess with. Sam felt a little like he'd been scolded by his grandmother for not using a coaster on her coffee table--embarrassed that he'd done something so thoughtless.  
  
"Uh," Dean said, looking for all the world like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar ten minutes before supper. "No, ma'am," he continued without even a trace of sarcasm. He set it carefully on the cart.  
  
"What a good boy," she said. She smiled gently, patting him on the shoulder as she made her way over to the next stack, wheel of the cart squeaking the whole way.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Joan yawned. Her late night and early morning were starting to catch up with her, and she wondered exactly how much of this assignment she was supposed to do this week. She was looking blindly through one of her books, trying to find anything pertinent before lobbing her frustrated head down directly into the crease of its spine. She lifted her head and brought it down again, pages sticking a little to her forehead. She did it again.  
  
"Head up, Joan," came a voice from beside her. Joan quickly raised her head. Ah, God. Of course. She was in the same sweet old lady form that she took in the bookstore sometimes. She looked so small behind the huge book cart she was pushing. She wondered why Little Old Lady God almost always came to her when she was around books. "You've done a lot of work on your paper today. I'm proud of you."  
  
"Yeah, well," Joan said, too tired to quip.  
  
"I think you might be done here for today," God said, picking up a book from her cart and placing it in its spot on the stacks. "I've always liked libraries, you know. Something about all this knowledge, all these stories, here for anyone to have. And, somewhere along the way, someone had an idea for organization that almost every library uses. One person's idea is still alive and well in these stacks, helping people find what they need. Truly amazing." She turned her focus once again on Joan, saying, "I've still got some other work I would like for you to do."  
  
"I thought I _was_ doing what you wanted," Joan said with a little whine. "What else can I do?"  
  
"Meeting people isn't always enough. Sometimes you need to look beyond the surface; people aren't exactly who they appear to be at first. That's all you need to know for right now. Also--be careful tonight, and make sure that you and Grace try to stay off campus."  
  
"Why?" Joan asked.  
  
God looked at her with something that almost resembled worry, brow knitting together as the corners of her mouth turned down.  
  
Joan gasped. "Is there going to be another murder? Grace said that the whole conference is a little nervous about all that."  
  
"It's just best if you just try to keep away from campus tonight, " she said, absently picking up one of the books Joan hadn't opened yet. "Also, you need to get this book to those nice boys you met. This is very important."  
  
"Why?" Joan asked again. She was not surprised that the only answer she got was God pulling her glasses down on her nose, so she could look at Joan from above the rims.  
  
Joan rolled her eyes a little. "I know, I know. Do as you ask." She took the book. "Fine," she snipped, setting the book with her things.  
  
God smiled at her and put the rest of the books from Joan's table on the cart. "You'll want to get those index cards in order before you leave. It would be a shame to lose all that hard work to poor organization." She gave a little wave as she walked away, pushing the cart in front of her.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Dean was looking forward to a nap before they headed out to campus that night to see what they could get from the EMF reader. He was getting tired of this hunt. He didn't like how useless it was making him feel. Lately, he had enjoyed the business of hunting ghosts, when they had the time to do it. These hunts were more of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of gig; dig up the bones, little salt, little lighter fluid, book of matches, and woosh! No more ghost. Progress. A battle won. It made him feel like there was something he could actually _do_. Cases like this gave him and Sam something to talk about, something that they understood how to fight.  
  
But this? They were usually packing the Impala by now, heading out of town, not just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses with no real leads. The other chick's roommates also told them all about what a great girl their friend was, but again--no odd sounds, no cold rooms, no ooze, no scratching in the walls. They were spinning their wheels here, and this case had just started to feel like more like the apocalyptic bullshit they'd gotten stuck in--more of not knowing what the fuck they were really up against. His bones itched to fight something he could see, to burn something and make it go away.  
  
As he and Sam made their way back to their motel room, that Joan girl was waiting for them--sitting on the ground in front of their door, knees up, reading a book.  
  
"Joan?" Sam asked. "Is everything okay?"  
  
"What? Oh, yeah," she said, standing. "I'm supposed to give this to you." She held out the book she'd been reading. Sam took it, reading the title out loud, " _Legends of the Great Plains Tribes_?"  
  
"Why are you giving this to us?" Dean was starting to feel a little uneasy around this girl. Something about her was definitely _off_. And he didn't like that Sam seemed to get that smitten puppy look around her. He had the _worst_ taste in chicks lately.  
  
Joan was quiet for a minute, looking like she was trying to find the words. "Um," she finally said. "I just--needed to give that to you." She held out her hands in front of her, urging Sam not to give it back. "Just. Keep it, okay? I mean--until you're done with it. Then return it. I can't imagine the lecture I'll get if you, like, _really_ keep it." At that, she walked off toward her own room, and he and Sam went inside.


	2. Chapter 2

The motel room was getting dark, and she still hadn't heard from Grace, other than a short text about an hour ago telling her that she'd be back soon. Joan was starting to get nervous. She had just made up her mind to go looking for her when she came through the door.  
  
"Oh, thank God," Joan said. "I was getting ready to call in the search dogs."  
  
"Relax, Girardi. But yeah, today was kind of a beating. Who would have thought it would take so long to listen to people read their papers? And, I gotta be back in an hour. Wanna go grab a sandwich or something?"  
  
"Tonight? You have to go?"  
  
"Yeah. They're narrowing it down to the top contenders. I think I may actually have a shot." She looked excited and happy, and Joan hated, _hated_ herself for what she said next.  
  
"You can't go."  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
"Just. You can't. Not tonight."  
  
"Why the hell not?"  
  
Joan sighed. This would all be so much easier if she could just say, _because God said so_. Since she couldn't say that, she went with, "I don't know."  
  
Grace tilted her head to the side, eying her intensely. Then she smiled nervously, saying, "You've been in this room for too long. Let's just go get something to eat."  
  
Joan nodded her head mutely and then grabbed her scarf and jacket. She sniffed at the air and wrinkled her nose. "Anything but nachos."  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Dean wanted to check out the area where the girls had been killed--all of them in front of the American Studies Building. Maybe if they could meet the ghost face-to-face, they might be able to get somewhere with this hunt and finally put Lincoln behind them.  
  
From the passenger side of the Impala, Sam had his flashlight turned on the book Joan had given them earlier. "I can't believe you're actually reading that," Dean said.  
  
Sam sighed. "What's the harm? Don't you find it at least a little bit interesting that Joan gave us this book on legends?"  
  
Dean stared straight ahead, muscles in his jaw working as he focused on the road, disturbed at how quick Sam was to change their plan because of a book from some stranger. He didn't want to wait another night, wasting more time on research that wouldn't lead anywhere. He wanted to hunt this thing and kill it.  
  
"Legends, Dean. It's sort of what we do. Half the stuff we hunt comes from stories like these. Isn't it at least a _possibility_ that there's a lead in here?"  
  
"She just likes you, Sam. And you turn into this--I don't know--this goofy-smile-puppy-eyed idiot when she's around. I just think we should see if we can smoke this bastard out, see what we're up against, and then kick its ass."  
  
Dean pulled the Impala to the closest parking space he could find to the part of campus they needed to investigate, ignoring the _Faculty Parking_ sign that was clearly visible.  
  
"You can't park here, Dean," Sam said.  
  
"What, like I'm going to park way out in BFE visitors when we might need to come back and get shovels or ammo? It'll be fine. Spring break."  
  
Sam smirked. "Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you."  
  
Dean was getting irritated. When Sam made no move to get out of the car, he said, "Look, if you want to sit in here and read your little stories, then fine. I'm gonna go _do our job_." He shut his door with as much force as he could without slamming it and stalked around to the trunk.  
  
He heard Sam's door open and close, and he gave a small sigh of relief when Sam strode up beside him.  
  
They each grabbed one of the handguns that shot rock salt. The shotguns would do a better job, but the campus wasn't entirely empty, and they couldn't risk being seen with them. Dean also grabbed an iron crowbar, and Sam took a knife. Dean patted the EMF reader in his jacket pocket before they headed into campus.  
  
There were no people around that they could see, but the building ahead of them had most of its lights on. Dean worried that they wouldn't be alone for long. He pulled out the reader and switched it on. It whined at him softly, letting him know it was on, but nothing out of the ordinary was registering. They walked slowly, and Dean swung the reader around wide, trying to see if anything would pick up. He could hear Sam's soft footsteps behind him.  
  
He'd made his way up the entire footpath that lead to the building and was making his way back down when he heard Sam say hello to someone. He turned around, quickly pocketing the reader, to see that weird girl's friend coming up the walk. He smiled benignly at her, adopting a posture that said I'm-just-taking-an-evening-stroll-on-campus.

Suddenly, the reader got very loud from inside his jacket pocket, giving just enough warning before Sam shouted, "Dean! Get down!"

He instantly hit the ground, taking the girl with him, and he felt something very cold skim the top of his head. When he looked up, Sam slashed his knife across the body of a pale figure wearing an Indian headdress.

"What the?" Dean muttered as he pulled himself up off the grass, wiping absently at his knees. He held out his hand for the girl to get up, but she shook him off, getting up by herself.

"You all right?" He asked. When she nodded her head yes, he told her, "Run." She didn't move. "Get outta here."

"I'm not going anywhere, you moron." She hit him on the arm with the back of her hand. She was very small, but the fury that was rolling off of her made her seem to be at least twice her size. "What the hell, dude?"

"Listen, lady," Dean said, leaning down enough to get in her face a little. "I don't have time to babysit you right now. You need to get out of here now."

Her eyes were blazing. "The name is Grace. And, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going--"

"Hey, look over here," Sam said. "This is where it landed." He ignored Grace to turn his attention to where Sam was scuffing at the ground with one of his boots.

"Where what landed?" Dean asked, walking over to where Sam was, Grace just steps behind him.

"The tomahawk. He threw a tomahawk."

When he crouched down to get a better look, he saw the same fine powdering of salt he'd seen around Ashely Gibson. He pinched some between his fingers. "Son of a bitch," he said, throwing the salt back to the ground, but he'd only barely had time to process what he was seeing when the ghost reappeared behind Sam. He didn't want to fire his gun, but he didn't have a choice--the thing had flung Sam ten yards away and now had him by the throat, pinning him to a tree.

"Sam!" he shouted.

One shot, and it dissipated, and Dean sighed in relief. He was half afraid that the salt wouldn't work on this one. Apparently, though, this bastard had to go by the same rules as everything else. Sam fell away from the tree, gulping air. Dean was already jogging toward him, shouting, "Sam! You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam said, only a little breathless. "I'm good." He took a deep breath, bringing himself back up to full height.

"We better go before it comes back or before someone sends the cops for the gunshot," Dean said, knowing that they couldn't do any more without having any information on how to find the remains. He turned to Grace. "Why are you even here this late?"

Her face was pale, and she looked a little like she was in shock. "Was that a gho-- No. No. That's just insane. I'm going insane," she said, shaking her head in short staccato movements. She was about five seconds from barfing all over her combat boots when Dean looked over to Sam, trying wordlessly to tell him to _handle this_.

"No," Sam said, stepping in, laying a grounding hand on her shoulder, urging her back to the here and now. "You're not, but we need to know, Grace. Are you by yourself, or is anyone else coming? No one should be around here tonight. It's not safe."

Grace took a shaky breath. "I was the last to leave, so I think everyone else is gone." When Dean looked back toward the building, he noticed that most of the lights had been turned off.

"We didn't see anyone else leave. Are you sure you were the last one out?" Sam asked, putting a hand on her other shoulder, trying to keep her focused.

"Pretty sure. Almost everyone else left through the other door, but this door was closer to where I was gonna have Joan pick me up." Her voice was a low and even monotone. Her hands were shaking. "What was that?" She suddenly looked up sharply. "Who _are_ you guys?"

"We'll tell you everything you need to know," Sam said, releasing her shoulders. "But first, we need to get you out of here. We'll take you back to the motel."

Grace nodded dumbly and followed them back to the car. They walked a few paces in front of her, and Sam talked low so that only Dean could hear. "I think I might know who that was."

When they got within eye-shot of the Impala, Dean saw a small piece of paper flapping from underneath one of the wipers. He picked it up--he'd gotten a damn parking ticket. "Sixty five bucks!"

"I told you not to park here," was all Sam said, opening the back door for Grace.

Dean crumpled the ticket and threw it on the ground.

\-- -- -- --

Joan was near to frantic, pacing quickly from one end of the small motel room to the other. Grace was not answering any of her calls or texts. She knew she was gonna hear it from God--she couldn't keep Grace from going back to campus. She'd tried _everything_ , but Grace wouldn't listen. The only thing she could have done was to literally tie her down, and she'd even considered that as a real option for a few insane seconds, but how in the world would she have been able to explain that? She hit Grace's number on her phone again. It was still going straight to voicemail. She gathered her things and left the motel room.

\-- -- -- --

Grace seemed to snap out of her shock by the time they pulled into the parking lot of the motel. From the back seat of the Impala, her voice was insistent when she asked again, "Who in the hell are you two, and what the hell just happened?"

"You were attacked by a ghost," Dean said as he got out. He knew there would be more questions, and he had a few of his own. He was antsy to get back to campus. He thought he'd seen a spot where he and Sam could watch the area from the Impala in case any other people decided to take a nighttime stroll.

They walked with her back to her room, and when she opened the door, she told them to come in. "So you guys aren't really reporters, then." It wasn't a question.

"No," Sam said. He filled one of the glasses by the sink with water.

"Then, for the millionth time, who are you? Spill, dude."

Sam handed her the glass as he looked over to Dean, who met his look and gave a sharp nod of his head. She took a small sip, hands still shaking a little.

"My name is Sam, and this is my brother, Dean. This is sort of what we do."

"What? Fight ghosts?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yeah, kinda." When she said nothing, just stared at both of them with a look of confusion, Sam continued, "Where's Joan? I actually need to ask her a couple of questions."

Grace looked around the room, seeming to only notice then that Joan was gone. "I don't know," she said, pulling her phone from her back pocket. She opened it up and switched it on. "Jesus," she said, pressing the scroll button over and over again. She looked at it intently for a few minutes, pressing buttons. "It's weird. Joan didn't want me to go tonight. Begged me not to, actually. I thought she was just being crazy--she can get like that sometimes." She paused for a minute, reading. "Shit," she said. "She's gone to campus looking for me."

She immediately hit the call button. Her leg bounced nervously as she waited. "Joan?" she said, sighing in relief.

As she spoke with Joan, Sam pulled Dean off to the little table at the front of the room. "Look," he said. "I read this earlier tonight, but at the time it just blended in with all the other stories, but--I think this may be our guy." He opened Joan's book, flipping pages until he stopped when he found what he needed.

Sam read in a hoarse whisper. " _A pillar of snowy salt once stood on the Nebraska plain, about forty miles above the point where the Saline flows into the Platte, and white men used to hear of it as the Salt Witch_." Dean moved in a little closer, eying the page, and Sam kept reading silently. Then, he said, "It says here that this Indian chief went crazy when his wife died, and that he saw some sort of ghost kill her, and then he killed the ghost with a tomahawk."

Dean sighed and leaned back in his chair. "It's the best theory we've got so far. But what do you think would make Crazy Horse start killing college kids all of a sudden?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know," he said running a hand through his hair. "And, I don't understand why Joan gave this to us. And, she told Grace to stay away from campus. She's involved somehow, I just don't know how."

Dean felt his face go stony. He didn't like where this could be leading. "Think she might be, I don't know, controlling it or something?"

Sam seemed to think about this for a second before he answered, "No. If she was controlling it, why would she have given us the book with the legend we needed? And, the ghost threw the tomahawk directly at Grace, Dean, like _she_ was the intended target. It only came after me because I pissed it off. I just don't think Joan would have intentionally put Grace in danger."

"Maybe she's one of your pals from the Psychic Friends Network; got her baby bottle fortified with blood from our dearly departed yellow eyed pain-in-the-ass."

Sam drew his lips into a tight line as he thought, but Grace's voice called their attention away from the book, out of their hushed conversation.

"She's on her way. She'd gone looking for me. She's got the car, so she should be back in just a second."

Dean cleared his throat. "You said that Joan didn't want you to go tonight. Did she say why?"

Grace shook her head. "She wouldn't tell me."

\-- -- -- --

Joan nearly ran from the car to the motel room. When she got inside, she saw that Grace was not alone. Alex and Neil were inside with her, sitting at the chairs by the table while Grace sat cross-legged on her bed. She looked from the guys to Grace, wondering what in the world was going on.

"What happened?" she asked. "Are you sure you're ok?" Grace had grass stains all over her jeans. She looked like she'd been rolling around on the ground.

"It's been a really weird night, dude," Grace said.

"Joan," Neil said. "We have some questions for you, if you don't mind."

"Okay," Joan said cautiously, pulling the scarf from her neck and shrugging off her jacket. They all looked so serious. Her stomach turned uncomfortably.

"This is going to sound strange, but we need to know why you gave us this book." He held up the book she'd given him earlier. "And, why you didn't want Grace on campus tonight."

Joan did not know what to say. "Did something bad happen?"

"Grace was attacked," Alex said. Joan's heart was beating so loud, it was almost all she could hear in her ears. She was suddenly stricken with the kind of guilt she only felt when she knew she had failed to do what God had asked her to do--she had put Grace in danger; it was her fault. If only she'd tried harder, been a little more creative--

"By a ghost," Neil finished.

Joan huffed in relief, waiting for the smile, the punch line. It didn't come.

"This is a joke, right?" She said looking at Grace.

"No," Grace said, looking down for a second, shaking her head. But then she made solid eye contact with Joan. "It's not a joke. I can't explain it either, but one second I was walking back from the meeting, and the next thing I know..." She let her voice trail off before she spoke up again. "I saw it. I saw a ghost. It threw him against a tree, but then he-- These guys saved my life."

"This is nuts," Joan said.

"It's true," Neil said. He looked a little sheepish when he spoke next. "We're, uh, not reporters. My name is Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean."

"What?" Joan was so confused, and her first reaction was to be pissed that these guys had lied to her, but then she went back over her conversation with God in the library. "Sometimes people aren't exactly who they appear to be at first," Joan said out loud, working it out in her head.

"We're here to help," Neil-- _Sam_ \--said. "We're not going to hurt you, but how did you know? How did you know about the book? And about campus tonight?"

Joan looked around nervously. Something tugged at her gut. She sighed deeply, and she knew what she needed to say. She also knew that she couldn't tell Grace.

She turned to Grace, eyes pleading. "Grace," she said. "I need to talk to them alone."

Grace opened her mouth like she was about to protest, but Joan held up her hand to get her not to. She said, "You need to trust me here." Joan looked her in they eye, silently begging her to just let it go. "Please."

"I--" Grace said, shoulders falling. "I think I'll go get something to drink. Anyone else want a soda?" She didn't wait for their answers as she grabbed her bag and the car keys and left.

"Okay," Al-- _Dean_ said. His voice was gruff and stern, holding none of the lightness she remembered from the bar. "You know who we are, but you need to tell us right now who _you_ are and how you know these things, or I swear..." He let the threat hang in the air.

Joan didn't know where to begin. "I was told to give you the book," she said, looking down at her hands.

"By who?" Dean asked.

"I'm not supposed to say," she said. She bit her lower lip.

"This... person... who told you to give the book--did they have black eyes? Or white or yellow, maybe?" Sam asked.

"What?" Joan said, totally unprepared for such a weird question. "No!" But then she thought of Ryan's eyes last year, how they had sometimes looked like they had filled entirely with black.

"Then, who was it?" Dean looked her square in the eye; he was obviously getting impatient.

"Someone I trust," she said, realizing at that moment that she meant it. It had been almost four years since God started talking to her, and it took her until now to really realize that she _trusted_ what he (or she) told her, asked of her. She may not _want_ to do everything God told her to do, and she got it wrong before she got it right most of the time. She may not understand any of it at all, but she did trust God.

She was suddenly super aware that the words _this is very important_ were the words God had used today. Something about how God had talked about these guys in the library made her think--maybe she could tell them. Maybe they would believe her. They did believe in ghosts, right?

"God," she said. "God told me to give you that book. God told me to keep Grace from campus."

Dean laughed, dry and loud and completely humorless. It was an unsettling sound, and it sent the hairs on the back of her neck on end. "God," he said, crossing his arms at his chest. "No--it wasn't."

"I know it sounds crazy, but it's true." She was starting to get a little defensive. They were the freaks who were talking about ghosts. "You wanted to know how I knew, and I told you."

"God has left the building," Dean said. His voice could have been carved from ice or stone for how it sounded. Sam had stood up and was looking out the window. She could see the muscles in his jaw working as his face turned as hard as she'd ever seen it.

She suddenly and surprisingly found that she did not feel foolish at all for her admission. Something inside her was telling her that she needed to keep talking, needed them to believe her.

"No," Joan said. "God has not left the building. I mean... maybe _this_ building--he's obviously not here now. Or she... sometimes he's a she. Or--"

"Wait," Sam said, turning from the window. "You really think you talk to God?"

"I know I do," she said. "Or, God talks to me."

"All right then," Dean said, and his smirk was sarcastic, close to cruel. He was stepping into her personal space. "What does _God_ tell you?" Now even the smirk left, and he was staring at her with fiery eyes. He set his jaw and growled, " What does that bastard have to say about what's going on out there?" His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

Joan blinked, stepping back. "God tells me different things," she admitted, stammering only a little. "He tells me to do better, to pay attention, to help people. It's different every time."

Sam put a hand on Dean's shoulder, pulling him away from Joan. Dean seemed to take the hint and took Sam's place by the window, looking out briefly before turning back, staring at her.

"So," Sam said. "When you talk to... God--is it like voices that you hear? Like a radio, or is it more a feeling that you get?" His voice had gone soft and even again, like Adam, like he really wanted to understand.

"Oh," Joan said, relaxing a little. "Um. It's talking to a person. God is always a person--sometimes just random people, but he sometimes has certain... bodies... that he uses more often, but really he could be anyone."

"How do you know when it's God? If it could be anyone?" Sam asked.

"Well, he knows me. Knows my name, what's going on with me. It's usually really clear." She suddenly remembered the bar the other night. "Like, uh... do you remember at the bar?" she asked, pointing at Dean. "The bartender--knew my name. Wanted me to drink more water?"

Dean chuckled, cynical and hard. "You think that the bartender was--God?"

"Yes," Joan said. "And, she was in the library today. I don't think you guys saw her, but she was like this little old lady with short hair and big glasses putting books on a cart. That's when she told me to give that book to you."

They exchanged a long look with one another, but soon both of them were staring at her intently. Sam seemed concerned, and Dean looked _angry_. "Son of a bitch," he said--low and menacing. He kicked the chair on his way to the door, which he slammed as he left. The picture frame on the wall shook and slid off-kilter.

Sam drew his face tightly shut as he watched Dean go. When he turned back to her, though, he was actually smiling--just a little. "So, you talk to God."

Joan nodded. "Did the book help?" Her voice sounded a little weak in her ears.

"I think it might have, actually," Sam said, like he hardly believed it himself. He seemed to hesitate before he began speaking again. "Can you... next time you talk to God--can you ask him what the hell he's doing about... things?"

"Yeah," Joan said. "But he probably won't tell me."

\-- -- -- --

Sam left when Grace came back, not long after Dean had stormed out, excusing himself after checking one more time if she was okay.

He was more concerned about Dean; he knew that even the mention of God being somehow involved in any of this would stir up the shit even more. He thought he might actually believe Joan, but if she talked to God, if there really _was_ a God, where in the hell has he been while they were left to deal with the angels and demons and their apocalypse?

When he got the room, Dean was sitting at the table with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"Dean," Sam said, bracing himself for what was coming. He searched for the words he wanted to say, but Dean cut him off.

"Look, Sammy," he said, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I don't want to talk about this right now. Can we just-- Can we just focus on the case? I think we should get back to campus and make sure no one else gets in this thing's way." Sam took a step closer, but shoved his hands in his pockets. Dean's face was hard; his voice was gravel, but his eyes were pleading when he said, "We can just work on the case right now, all right?"

"Yeah," Sam said, though he knew they would have to talk about this eventually. "Sure."

\-- -- -- --

Dean did not think about God as he took one last swig of Jack before grabbing his jacket. He did not think about God as he and Sam drove in silence back to campus, or when he parked the car in view of the American Studies building.

Thankfully, everything looked quiet on campus. Sam opened the file folder that held all of the information they'd gathered for the case, and he read. Dean listened to quiet rustling of pages and sank into the familiar feel of the Impala's seat. He pushed the _Master of Puppets_ cassette into the player and drummed along quietly with his thumbs on the steering wheel.

He'd thought about calling Cas. The second he remembered that librarian, the second he'd left Joan's room, the first thing he wanted to do was get that winged bastard in front of him to give him some real fucking answers for once. He smashed a glass of whiskey against the motel wall instead.

If it was true--if God was alive and well and talking to college girls about books, then why the _fuck_ wouldn't he talk to him? Hadn't he done enough? Didn't he deserve some sort of guidance, some answers? Was he really so useless, so inconsequential to God that he couldn't even send some kind of sign? When God had _left the building_ , Dean could at least blame Lilith or Ruby or the angels or even Sam for all of this shit, but if God really was around, if he was _here_...

Dean suddenly felt tired down to his bones, the energy of the fight earlier mingling with the alcohol. He closed his eyes for just a minute. He just needed to rest his eyes for a minute.

He dreamed of knives and of blood and of ripping flesh and snapping bone, and he could hear screaming--always screaming. It rang in his ears and rattled his teeth, and blood sprayed across his face, and the screaming grew louder, and he tasted the blood, coppery and bitter on his tongue--

Then there was a weight on his shoulder, warm and insistent, and when he opened his eyes, Sam was shaking him, telling him to wake up. He sat up with a deep breath, rubbing at the crick in his neck. A quick check of the clock told him that he rested his eyes for an hour and a half.

Sam cleared his throat. "I think I found something," he said. He did not say _you were having a nightmare_. They had both stopped saying that any more.

"Did he come back?" Dean asked.

"No, it's been quiet. But look," Sam said. He handed Dean one of the papers from the file. "The first victim was Jeanie Wilson, right. Remember, she was doing a lot of the set-up for the conference, and see--" He pointed to something on the page, shining his flashlight so Dean could see better. "The main conference room usually houses a collection of Native American artifacts."

Dean looked at the page, and saw what Sam had noticed. "She moved it to store in another room," he said.

"Yeah," Sam said. "And look at this--" He put another sheet of paper in Dean's hands, again pointing at the part he wanted Dean to see. "She was the first candidate to earn a spot to speak. No big deal, right? Well, I looked at the other girls. The second one--she also died on the night she was turning in her paper, and so did Ashley Gibson. The lore says that this chief killed the ghost of a woman who was killing his wife, so what if this ghost is killing women who are in some way a threat to other women?"

"Come on, Sam. These girls weren't killing anyone. They were just submitting papers to present."

"You know as well as I do that ghosts aren't particular about the details, Dean."

"Well, it's certainly _something_. Got any idea where they might have moved the display stuff?"

"No, but I bet we can find out pretty easily tomorrow morning." He gathered back all of the papers and put them back in the folder, and he yawned deeply. "But for now, it's your turn to watch," Sam said, balling up a hoodie from the back seat and jamming it between his head and the window as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

\-- -- -- --


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Joan tried to talk to Grace about what had happened the night before. Grace was still a little shaken when she'd gotten in after Sam had left, and Joan worried also that she might still be a little mad at sending her away. But, when Grace insisted that she was fine, Joan had to admit that she seemed back to normal today. They'd gotten up and out early since this would be the first day of speakers and forums.  
  
The hallway outside of the conference room was buzzing with activity. There were tons of people, and there were booths set up for every organization that ever existed. Joan had papers in her hand from PETA, three crisis hotlines, The Air Force National Guard, some summer camp in Kentucky that worked with at-risk youth, Campus Crusade for Christ, College Democrats, and about five others that she hadn't even looked at.  
  
Grace checked her watch as someone handed Joan yet another flier. "I better go get us some seats. Can you find some coffee?"  
  
"Sure," Joan said. Grace made her way through the crowd to the doors that led into the conference room, and Joan sighed, looking in between bodies and over heads to try and find the coffee booth.  
  
She found it pretty quickly, sandwiched between two other booths near the conference room entrance.   
  
There were no cups on the table next to the carafe, and the woman behind the table told her, "Hold on a sec. Cups are comin'."   
  
"We just got slammed," she said, rifling through a box under the table. "I guess everyone wanted a jolt before going to sit for two hours." She popped up quickly with a large stack of paper cups, which she set on the table. Joan took two from the top, shoving all of her papers under her arm as she poured coffee from the spigot. She moved wrong and dropped the papers, watching as they all fluttered to the floor.   
  
The girl picked them up for her as Joan juggled the cups and tried to not spill the hot coffee all over her hands. She was young, maybe a couple years older than Joan, and her head was shaved almost completely bald. She had a ring in her nose and heavy eye-make up. She was dressed in cargo pants and a white wife-beater style tank top.  
  
"Thanks," Joan said.  
  
"Don't mention it, Joan," the girl said, setting the papers in a stack on the table.  
  
"It's you," Joan said.  
  
"Something on your mind, Joan," God asked, not unkindly.  
  
Joan didn't know what to say. She looked around at the crowd, which was starting to lighten as people began to find their seats.  
  
"I'm sorry," Joan said finally, setting the coffee cups down on the table. She looked God in the eyes, and she felt tears sting the back of her own.  
  
"What for? Did you do something you shouldn't have?"  
  
"I couldn't keep Grace away from campus last night. I still don't really know what happened, but she could have really gotten hurt. You tried to tell me, and I guess I just should have tried harder to keep her at the motel."  
  
"Listen, Joan," God said. "You did your best. I asked you to try to keep Grace from campus. That is exactly what you did. You did well."  
  
"But she--"  
  
God cut her off. "Grace is fine. And she's got you to talk to about all of this when she's ready. I knew Grace would be protected when she went."  
  
"Wait," Joan said. "You knew she was gonna go anyway?"   
  
God smiled a little. "I figured. I know her pretty well, you know. She's got free will. We've talked about this--people have choices. Grace made hers when she went to the meeting." God picked up a sugar packet and flicked it back and forth a couple of times.  
  
"If you knew she'd go anyway, why did you have me try and stop her?"  
  
"She needed to know you didn't want her to go." God sighed. "What's happening right now is very important, and she needed you to try and stop her. _I_ needed you to try." God opened the packet and poured the contents into an empty cup, which she filled with coffee for herself. Joan was getting beyond irritated. She didn't understand anything, and she looked up at the ceiling, trying to gather her thoughts before speaking again. She took a perfunctory look around; her head hurt, and she could feel her cheeks getting hot.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dean and Sam come into through the doors. They were both wearing neat khaki pants and polo shirts with an embroidered moving truck on them. They didn't see her, and God's voice brought her attention back around.  
  
"You're wondering what they're doing here."  
  
Joan shook her head a little. "What?"  
  
"Sam and Dean Winchester," God said.  
  
"You know them?"  
  
"I know everyone. You're wondering what they're doing here, and you're worried that you told them about me. It's okay--telling them was part of the plan." God took a sip of coffee. "I think you knew that last night."  
  
"Yeah. That was weird."  
  
"What was weird about it, Joan?"  
  
"Well," Joan said. "They believed me, I think. I mean. They didn't treat me like I was nuts or anything, which, you know... But then Dean got--he got so _angry_ when I mentioned you. That was weird."  
  
God looked over at them, they were talking to a woman in a pantsuit. "He has a reason to be angry," God said. She looked a little sad.  
  
Joan waited for God to say more about it, but she didn't. "Speaker's going on in a couple of minutes," God said. "Here." She handed Joan the coffees and one of the fliers--the one about the summer camp. "This is the only one of these you'll need." God smiled and winked at her.  
  
Joan began to walk away, but God called her back. "Joan," she said. "I'm going to ask something of you that I've never done before."  
  
"What is it?" Joan asked, intensely curious.  
  
"You'll know when I ask it. I just want you to be prepared. I need you to do as I ask," she said.  
  
"Okay..." Joan said. She opened her mouth for another question, but God cut her off again.  
  
"Speaker's going on. You don't want to be late." She waved, and Joan knew the conversation was over. Just when she thought God couldn't get weirder, he always surprised her.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Dean smiled as he and Sam left the conference hall.   
  
"Man, that was almost too easy," he said, tucking the printed campus map into his back pocket.  
  
"I told you the shirts would work," Sam said.  
  
"Dude. We look like tools. I mean, nothing new for you, but--"  
  
"We got what we needed, didn't we?" Sam said.  
  
"I guess."   
  
Dean was still sometimes surprised at the information people would give up so easily. They'd just gone in to speak with the chairperson of the conference, pretending like they were scheduled to move the exhibit back to its original place today, and she just spilled all of the information about where the exhibit was being held and when it was scheduled to move back. All they had to do was come back this evening when the conference let out and then it was salt and burn and good bye Nebraska.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
The sun wasn't completely down when Sam and Dean climbed out of the car and headed back to campus. The exhibit with the remains of their spirit were being held in the same building as the conference, but in a storage room around on the other side. There were still a few people lingering, and Sam hoped that they would be able to do this without calling too much attention to themselves.  
  
Sam opened the door to the building, and they both walked in. They were still dressed in their moving shirts, but they had their jackets on over them to conceal the guns they were carrying.  
  
"This way," Sam said, checking the map in his hand and turning a corner into a much darker empty hallway. Dean was right behind him. They found the room, and Sam checked the knob. It was locked, so he picked it. Less than a minute later, the door had opened to what used to probably be a small classroom. Now, it was piled with boxes, but the ones they needed were easily spotted. They were clearly labeled. All they had to do was find out which one of these things had the piece they were looking for.  
  
Dean slid a knife through the tape on one of the boxes, and Sam did the same. Inside, he found old headdresses and breast plates made from bone and teeth. There were some pottery pieces that looked like bowls and some flaps of leather with tribal drawings. Every piece was packed in its own box, clearly labeled with had a sheet of information to go with it.  
  
"I think I got it," Dean said.  
  
When Sam looked over, he saw that Dean was holding up a long lock of hair--attached to a scalp.   
  
"That's disgusting," Sam said, walking over. Dean's eyes were on the information sheet, and when Sam got within reaching distance, Dean handed it to him.   
  
"What do you think?"  
  
"Looks like this is it." Sam said, reading over the sheet.   
  
Dean was already digging in his jeans pocket for his lighter. "Let's get this thing salted and burned--I'm sick of this bastard."  
  
"Dean, we can't just light a fire in here."  
  
Dean just looked at him. "Why the fuck not?"  
  
Sam looked pointedly at the sprinkler head at the ceiling. "And, we can't risk all this other stuff getting burned."  
  
Dean sighed. "Fine. We'll take Fugly's weave somewhere else, but we better get goin'. Sun's going down."  
  
They made quick work of putting things back as well as they could and were out the door without a hitch. They'd made it halfway down the footpath in front of the building when the EMF reader went haywire from inside Dean's jacket.  
  
"Shit," Sam said. Then he saw the spirit, hatchet arm raised. He threw it with skill and a silent war-cry, and Sam launched himself at Dean, knocking him to the ground, just out of the way of the tomahawk, which landed in the grass next to them in a powder-fine mist of salt.   
  
"Tonto's pissed," Dean said. The spirit came closer, this time gunning for Sam, and Sam ducked as the spirit swung a new tomahawk at his throat.  
  
Dean ran it through with an iron crowbar, and both of them began to run to the car as fast as they could while checking behind them.   
  
"Dude," Sam said. "It's following us. It's following the remains."  
  
"Damn it!" Dean said, and he pushed Sam out of the way of another flying hatchet. He pulled the scalp out from inside his jacket and called, "Hey, Crazy Horse! Over here!" He was swinging the thing by the hair above his head.  
  
"Dean!" Sam said, incredulous. Why was Dean taunting this thing?  
  
When Dean started to run in between two other buildings across the way, Sam understood. There were people coming. They needed to get this thing done. Sam ran as fast as his legs would carry him to catch up with Dean, who had stopped in a narrow enclosure separating two buildings. They were pretty well hidden here, and Sam was pulling the bag of salt from his own pocket as Dean threw the scalp on the ground, covering it with lighter fluid.  
  
The spirit was not happy. It caught up with them as well, and it threw Sam hard, slamming his right cheek into the side of the building. Sam swung at it with an iron knife and threw the bag of salt to Dean, who caught it deftly with one hand. When the spirit came back seconds later, it threw Dean off to the side just as he was flicking the lighter, slamming him against the wall, lighter falling flameless to the ground. Sam could hear the sick crack of Dean's head hitting the wall before the soft flump of his body hit the ground. The spirit was hovering over Dean, new tomahawk raised high above its head.  
  
Sam hesitated for half a second, deciding. But, then he threw himself on the lighter, flicking it to life. The instant he saw the orange flame, he threw it on the scalp, and it lit up brilliantly. The spirit in front of Dean flickered orange before disappearing into a white mist of powdery salt.  
  
Sam bent at the waist, hands on his knees. Still looking at the ground, he asked, "You okay?"  
  
When he looked up, Dean was pulling himself off the ground. He gave a thumbs up and said, "I'm wonderful. You?" He was still catching his breath, but he was laughing a little.  
  
"Yeah, I'm good," Sam said, but he was already rolling his shoulder and tenderly testing his cheek with his fingers. He'd had worse, but he wasn't going to be pretty in the morning.   
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Grace had showered and left early. She had to meet up with the conference big shots this morning, and she'd be presenting this evening, so Joan had one more day of finding something to do in Lincoln. She thought she might try and find a mall or something, do some shopping. She got ready quickly, tired of the motel and its smell, and she was hungry and in desperate need of a cup of coffee.  
  
She went to the little diner close to the motel, got some breakfast and coffee, and when she got back to the car God was waiting for her, leaning casually against the rear fender with his hands in his pockets. He was in the same form he'd been in when she first met him--cute, a little older than her, but he was dressed a little differently today. His jeans were dirty, leather jacket a little worn at the collar and cuffs. She wondered what happened to his regular brown corduroy jacket. Did God have a closet?  
  
"Good morning, Joan," He said, smiling at her. He straightened up, and she noticed he was holding a paper sack.  
  
"You," she said. She stopped short of getting in the car. She figured he'd be back, but she didn't really think it would be so soon; she thought she'd already done what he'd asked of her for now. "What's that?" she asked, indicating the paper sack with a nod.   
  
"Oh, I picked this up for someone who might want it." He changed the topic. "Planning on doing some shopping today?"  
  
Joan shrugged. "Yes, actually. But, you probably want me to, like, give all the money I was going to spend today on, like, unicycle lessons or something, right?"  
  
God chuckled a little. "Not at all. I have a little shopping to do of my own."  
  
Joan just looked at him.  
  
"But I need a ride."  
  
She shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. Get in." Once inside, she looked at him and pointed a finger in his face. "I get to pick the music, though."  
  
"Fair enough," he said.  
  
She pulled the car out of the parking lot, and when she got to the street, God told her to turn left. She did.  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
"C'mon Sammy," Dean said from the door. "Shake a leg! I'm ready to get outta here." He'd loaded his stuff into the Impala already.  
  
"Coming," Sam said. He had his duffel bag on his shoulder, and they stepped out into the sun and locked the door. Sam loaded his bag while Dean took care of checking out with the motel office.  
  
Once in the car and on the road, Sam said, "Where are you so eager to be, Dean?"  
  
"Anywhere but here," he said, smiling. He put an Iron Maiden tape into the deck and turned up the volume.  
  
Sam turned it down, just a little, so he could talk without shouting. "Have we heard from Bobby? Or Cas? Do we have any leads?"  
  
"Nope," Dean said. "I figured maybe we could head out to the mountains for a couple of days--I'm tired of flat and boring. We could do some research. Surely, there's bound to be some case out there somewhere."  
  
Sam shrugged his shoulders in silent agreement, and turned the music back up. Dean smiled at him and stepped on the gas.  
  
They'd been driving all of an hour, enough to just get them out of town when the car slowed down, whining loudly, smoke billowing from under the hood.  
  
"Son of a--" Dean let the word drop, shaking his head sharply, pulling the car over to the shoulder. Just figured that Nebraska would trap him there. He reached under the dash for the hood release and pulled. The hood popped with a soft clunk, and he got out to check the engine. Sam was right behind him.  
  
He lifted the hood, and it only took a second to see what the problem was. Damn serpentine belt was busted. That fucking figured. He could fix it himself; the belt wasn't that expensive, but he'd need to find a way back to town. He hoped he could find what he needed at the store without having to order it.   
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
"I'm not going to have to learn how to build engines now, am I?" Joan asked, when God got back in the car, bag with a brand new something from the auto parts store in hand.  
  
"No, Joan. Remember the boat? I don't think that vehicle mechanics are your strong suit."  
  
"What's that for then?" She asked. This was getting more and more confusing.  
  
"Someone needs it," he said. "Turn up here, and keep going west."  
  
She drove for a while, watching the town disappear behind them, traffic thinning, and she wondered where they were going.  
  
"We're almost there," God said. "In fact--" he pointed. There was a stalled car on the side of the road, hood propped up. She recognized the car. "We're here. Pull over."  
  
She did, and when she made to get out, God held his hand up. "Wait here," he said. Joan opened her mouth to protest, but God was already getting out car.  
  
She huffed, making a face at his retreating back. "I could be at the mall, you know," she said. He didn't even turn around. "Great. Just _great_ ," she said to herself before turning up the volume of the radio and grabbing a magazine from the back seat.   
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
Dean stepped out from behind the hood as he heard a car pull up behind the Impala.  
  
"Car trouble?" a guy asked, stepping out of the passenger seat of a little blue car that looked familiar. He was a young guy, a little shorter than he was--probably a frat kid from the college coming back from spring break a little early. If anything, Dean figured he might be able to get him to give directions to a decent auto parts store back in town.  
  
"Yeah." Dean said, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Serpentine belt's busted. I think I could fix it pretty easy, but I'll need to get back to--"  
  
"Huh," the guy said. "That's funny. I got one of those in the car. I know someone who needed one, so I just picked one up today. What model do you need?"  
  
Dean told him, and the guy smiled. "You're in luck--I got it."   
  
Dean started to protest, but the guy was already heading back to the car. He could tell that someone was in the driver's side, but the way the sun glinted off the windshield, he couldn't see. Something niggled at the back of his brain. There was something kinda off about this frat guy. Why did he happen to have the exact belt Dean needed, and where had he seen that car before?  
  
When the guy came back, Dean asked, "You know someone else with a classic Chevy?"  
  
"Yeah, I know a lot of car guys. Know a little something about engines, myself, too. Do you need any help?" When Dean looked a little closer, he saw that the guy's jeans were worn to the threads in places and had a couple of oil stains. His jacket was in almost as rough shape as Dean's. Maybe he wasn't just a stupid frat kid after all.  
  
Dean huffed out a short laugh. "Actually, I'd love a little help. I could do it, but an extra set of hands would be good. My brother over there--" He nodded at Sam, who gave a little wave. "Doesn't really know engines too well. More of a book nerd." He smiled at Sam, just to let him know that he didn't mean it as an insult.  
  
Sam nodded, saying, "Yeah. He keeps tryin' to teach me, but yeah. I'm not really very good at it."  
  
Soon enough, the guy was elbow-deep into the engine with Dean, and Dean was surprised to see that he really did know what he was doing. They got the belt fixed in record time, and Dean closed the hood with a contented sigh, glad that his baby was back in working order.  
  
"What do I owe you for the part?" he asked, pulling his wallet from his back pocket.  
  
They guy held up a hand. "Not a thing," he said. "Don't mention it. It's the least I could do."  
  
Dean tried to insist, but the guy wasn't having it, so Dean stowed his wallet away. "Well, thanks, man. Can I at least get you a beer? I think I got some in a cooler in the back."  
  
"That would be great," he said. Dean was glad he could repay this guy somehow, even if he wouldn't take his money. He didn't think people just _helped_ people anymore without wanting anything in return.  
  
He climbed into the Impala as the guy went back to his car, saying he needed to talk to his friend for a minute.   
  
When Dean stuck his head into the back seat of the car, reaching for the cooler, his heart skipped a beat when out of nowhere, Castiel suddenly appeared in front of him, sitting on the passenger seat.  
  
"Jeez, Cas. You've really got to start learning how to use the phone."  
  
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you."  
  
"What can I do for you today?" Dean asked, sarcastic edge to his voice. He didn't really want to know the answer. These days, when Cas turned up, it was not going to be good news. In fact, when Cas showed up, it usually meant he and Sam were mere hours away from cracked ribs and concussions. Judging by Castiel's crooked tie and dirty trench coat, this suspicion didn't seem unfounded.  
  
"I don't know," Cas said in that slow methodical way of his. He turned to look at Dean, expression as dry as ever. He crinkled his brow. "I was called here."  
  
"You were _called_ here?" Dean rolled his eyes. Apparently, Castiel's garrison was still working on a need-to-know basis, even with their own. Angels, man. They really aren't the sharing-and-caring type.  
  
"Yes," Castiel said. "I was called. So I came."  
  
"Well," Dean said, flinging empty fast food bags out of his way. He figured he could at least catch him up to speed. "We just did a job in Lincoln when the belt on the car broke. It's all fixed now, and we'll be back on the road soon. Think we're headin' out to the mountains."  
  
Castiel looked at him, expressionless. Dean grabbed the cooler and hauled it out of the car, shaking his head a little. Castiel opened his own door and was at his heels.  
  
"Hey, Cas," Sam said in greeting when he saw him. "You got somethin' for us? A lead on Lucifer?"  
  
"Hello, Sam," Castiel said.  
  
Dean snorted, answering for him. "No. He was _called_ here."  
  
Castiel nodded once, slow and alien. "So I came."  
  
Sam looked at Dean with raised eyebrows and shrugged.   
  
He saw the guy still standing at his car, head in the driver's side window, talking to his friend. He set the cooler down on the ground, grabbing beers for Sam and himself, popping the tops off with his key as he used the lid as a seat. Sam leaned against the fender of the Impala, and Castiel just stood watching them, unmoving and silent.   
  
As he took a long pull from his bottle, he heard the other car's door shut and footsteps, so he stood up to get another beer.   
  
When he looked up, though, he noticed that weird chick, Joan, was with the guy, and he felt his internal alarm system go into hyper drive. What could she possibly be doing here? Now he remembered where he'd seen that car before - the motel. And the bar. He suddenly felt really stupid.  
  
Then, heard the crunch of gravel under feet and saw that Cas was taking large steps backwards, eyes wide, face slack, chest rising and falling visibly under his trench coat. Dean had never seen Castiel react to anything with more than mild indifference or calm intensity.   
  
Dean felt his heartbeat speed up as adrenaline flooded into his system; something was _off_. Without thinking, he was reaching for the knife at his back. He noticed Sam, too, was on high alert, also reaching behind him. Dean was just about to draw the knife, when Castiel spoke.  
  
"Hosanna," he said, nearly breathless. "Glory to God in the highest!" And, then he fell to his knees, chest and face falling to the pavement, hands laid out before him.  
  
Dean looked at Sam, who was looking back at him now, just as confused. Castiel did not move, but Dean could hear him singing softly. _Singing_.  
  
The car guy was not smiling, but he didn't move to attack, either. He calmly looked over to Joan, who was staring at Castiel with her mouth hanging open, and said, "Joan, can you please tell Sam and Dean who I am?"  
  
Dean swallowed, and he noticed that Sam did, too. They hadn't told this guy their names. This could not be good. Angels and demons knew their names without being told. He gripped the hilt of his knife harder. He _knew_ that Joan chick was bad news.  
  
"Um," Joan said, looking uncertain. She bit her lip and stammered a little, but the guy nodded at her, encouraging her. "This is God."  
  
The guy that Joan said was God smiled at her and then at Dean and Sam. Then, he walked over to Castiel and said, "Rise, Castiel."  
  
Castiel slowly brought himself to his feet, but he did not lift his head, keeping it bowed, making himself as humble as Dean had ever seen him.  
  
The guy put a hand on Cas's shoulder and said, "It's all right. You can look at me."  
  
Cas lifted his face. "I've never seen you before," he said to the guy. Dean could see that Cas's blue eyes were watery, which only made this whole thing even weirder, more unsettling.   
  
"Your service and your faith have been tremendous. You have done well," they guy said.  
  
Castiel cleared his throat. "Thank you," he said, bowing his head again.  
  
"Wait just a damn minute here, pal," Dean said. This crazy guy really thought he was God. And apparently Cas thought so, too. Had everyone lost their minds? He couldn't fight the feeling in his gut, though, that was telling him that Cas usually knew what he was talking about when it came to this kind of thing.  
  
"I am God, Dean," he said, calmly. "I think you know that. You can feel that it's true. But if you need more, I can tell you that you are Dean Winchester, son of John and Mary Winchester. This is your brother Sam, and you had a half-brother, Adam Milligan, who you didn't know about until after he died last year. You were born in Lawrence, Kansas and lived there until the demon Azazel killed your mother, and your father became obsessed with hunting him. He died saving your life in a deal with that same demon, who you killed with the Colt at the Devil's Gate in South Dakota. Your first kiss was from Sherry Taylor in the fourth grade, you like your cheeseburgers with mustard and bacon, your favorite songs are "Ramble On" and "Traveling Riverside Blues," you really hate rats, but the only thing that has ever _really_ sacred you was losing Sam when he died and then again when he left last year."   
  
He paused for a breath, and looked at Dean square in the eye. "How am I doing so far? Do I need to keep going?"   
  
Dean didn't know what to say. He could feel the pounding of his heart in his chest, blood roaring in his ears. He wanted to hit something. This guy, this _God_ was just showing up now? Where the hell was he last year? Where was he when his own angels were killing each other, while his brother was drinking demon blood, becoming a monster for the sake of his war, when the angels kept him from getting to Sam in time to stop the last seal from breaking?  
  
"Go ahead," God said.  
  
"What?" Dean asked.  
  
"You can hit me if you want. I understand why you're angry with me."  
  
Dean took a step back, running a hand across his forehead. He was unnerved at how this guy was just reading what was going through his mind. Without thinking, he drew his knife and stepped right up to him, holding the business end right under his chin.   
  
But, in an instant, Castiel had his wrist. He heard Joan gasp and Sam come closer, but he never took his eyes from the face of the guy in front of him.  
  
"Dean," Cas said in warning, voice hard as steel in his ear. "Don't."  
  
Joan was saying something, too, but Dean wasn't listening to her. He was vaguely aware of Sam saying something back to her. Dean focused everything he had on the person in front of him, mind racing in some sort of plan that would loosen Castiel's grip for just a second. That was all it would take--just a second.  
  
"It's all right, Castiel," the guy said. He had not flinched or made a move to get away from the knife. Then he looked back at Dean, met his eyes, and said, "Go ahead, Dean. Put the knife through my throat, if it will make you feel better." His voice was not unattached like the angels, not sarcastic and oily, like the demons; it held no fear, no venom, but it seemed to Dean that when the guy spoke, he could feel his own chest ache with some unnameable kind of emotion that he wasn't sure he'd ever really felt before.  
  
Dean let out a growl of frustration, lowering his knife, unable to follow through. Cas let go of his arm then and stepped back cautiously.  
  
Sam came to stand beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder for just a second before letting it drop again. When Dean looked at him, he thought Sam looked raw and ragged and vaguely sick, like he would vomit there on the pavement at any second. Sam believed this guy.  
  
"You know," Joan said, voice seeming to come from nowhere. "I didn't believe him at first, either. But it's true. I don't really know what's going on here--it seems pretty... intense, but. This is God."  
  
"Yeah," Dean said, looking at the guy--at God, not Joan. "I got that. Doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot, though. Even his angels don't believe in him much these days. We've been fighting his war without his help for years." Dean threw his knife down to the ground in frustration, metal hitting the concrete with a _clink_.  
  
There were several long seconds of silence when God sighed and turned his attention to Cas. "Castiel," he said. Cas was kneeling in front of him in an instant. "Please go inform your garrison to prepare to receive Revelation. Tell them that I am coming to talk to them. It is time they started getting their orders directly."   
  
Then, the guy--God--touched Cas in the place where Jimmy Novack's heart was beating. The spot glowed brightly for an instant, brilliant white spilling through the gaps in his fingers, and Cas looked from his chest up at him, eyes wide. "Keep that as the assurance they'll need to have faith in this message."   
  
Castiel bowed his head, and God touched him on the forehead. In an instant, Cas vanished.  
  
They all looked at the blank space where Castiel once stood for a minute before God strode over to the cooler and opened it. He pulled three beers and held one out for Sam, who hesitated for a second before taking it. He held one out for Dean, but Dean didn't want a damn thing this guy was handing out. God smiled a little, almost to himself, and put the bottle back in the cooler.  
  
Joan cleared her throat, and the corner of God's lip twitched upwards. God looked at her and raised one eyebrow.   
  
"I know, I know," she said, rolling her eyes. "There's a Coke in the car." Dean watched as she huffed off to the car and grabbed her drink, noticing that she had spoken to the guy--to God--with the easy comfort of a friend or a parent. Dean couldn't imagine what that would feel like--he could still feel his whole body thrum with anger, it rolled over his spine and tingled in his fingers.  
  
"The problem with the angels," God said, taking a seat on top of the cooler, "is that they tend to take things far too literally." He popped the top off his beer and took a sip.  
  
Dean shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, shaking his head. "Is there any other way to take things? From where I stand, every single damn thing about the prophecy has been true."  
  
"That's where it gets a little more complicated," God said. "The angels--they were created as warriors, made to follow orders. The prophecies are supposed to help them do that job, but it's when they forget who it is they are protecting, that the choices people make can change things..." God let that thought hang in the air for a while. "When they get too wrapped up in the written word, well, that's when they begin to think they know better than _me_. Then they stop checking in, making sure." God stopped talking for a second and took another pull from his beer. "This is what happened with Uriel--and even with Lucifer all those ages ago. They have a free will, like you, but in a much different way. It's complicated."   
  
Dean found that as God had spoken, he had stepped forward, closer to God, closer to Sam. Joan had also come up beside them. She'd been so quiet, Dean had almost forgotten she was there.  
  
"Wait," she said. "I thought you said that your system was perfect. What's perfect about angels going all... power crazy, or whatever?"  
  
"That's a good question, Joan." God said with a wry smile. "The system is perfect because things happen how they should within it."  
  
Sam drew his lips in a tight line, drawing a deep breath through his nose. God looked at him, eyes softening, and Dean thought God might say something, but he didn't.  
  
"So, Azazel killing my mom, messing with my brother. Demons killing innocent people. Angels killing each other--this is what _should happen_?" Dean's voice was gravel rough. "That's bullshit!"  
  
"You misunderstand, Dean," God explained. "Everyone makes choices, and those choices have consequences. What has happened to you, to your family--they were products of supernatural outside influence, yes, but also by choices that were made--by your mother, by her parents, by you, and--" God looked at Sam. "By you."  
  
Sam looked sick again.  
  
"Don't get me wrong, Sam," he said. "I know you were trying to do whatever you thought it took to beat Lilith and stop all this, but... you made some bad choices--choices you knew were very wrong, even at the time. Those decisions, however good the intention was behind them, impacted things. There are consequences."  
  
Dean hated what he was hearing. "And you just _let_ it all happen? What kind of sick bastard are you? How is that a perfect system?"  
  
"The kind where you get to make your own decisions," God said, not unkindly, but very firmly. "If I had stopped your mother from making the deal, stopped Sam last year--that would be taking away their free will. That would have been unfair, untrue to how they were created."  
  
Dean looked over to Sam, who was still looking sick, face twisted in raw anguish for what he'd seen and what he'd done. He knew that Sam blamed himself for the apocalypse, which was only partly true. They'd all had their parts to play, starting with his own mother, and the angels and Ruby--they'd made sure that it all went down exactly to plan. When Sam met his gaze, he lifted his eyebrows, pleading, and then he looked to God.   
  
"I'm _sorry_ ," he said, and he huffed out a sob, dry and desperate. Dean felt something inside his chest twist painfully.  
  
Joan walked over to Sam, quietly putting a hand on his back in a sort of half-hug. Her face was full of sympathy, and her lips twitched as she tried to keep her emotions in check. For once, she didn't say anything. She just stood to offer the comfort that Dean couldn't make himself give--not yet.  
  
God also moved to Sam, putting a hand at the side of his neck, close to his shoulder. Joan backed away a little. "Look at me, Sam Winchester." Sam did. He looked miserable. "You were led astray, away from your true potential, your true nature. You messed up, but no one is perfect. You are forgiven." God's voice was kind and firm, and Dean watched as the weight of the world began to fall slowly from Sam's shoulders.   
  
At that, Sam dropped his head and repeated, "I'm so sorry," and Dean saw a tear fall down his left cheek. He wanted to go over, to comfort him in some way, but he still couldn't. His feet wouldn't move.  
  
"You are forgiven, Sam," God said again, but this time it was only perfunctory, a reminder more than anything.   
  
God backed away from Sam, giving him some space to compose himself before he spoke again to all of them, "I know you want answers," he said. "I can't give you all of them today, but I can tell you that I wanted Joan here for a reason. She knows a little about what you're going through."  
  
Dean chuckled as he looked at her. "Right," he said. No way this chick was a hunter.  
  
Joan stood a little taller. "Hey," she said, defensive. Then her shoulders fell a little, and she looked at God. "I do?"  
  
"Remember your senior year of high school, Joan? What was that like?"  
  
"It sucked." She shuddered, and then she said, "We had to fight. Ryan." She shuddered again.  
  
"You see, Joan fought her own battle very similar to this a couple of years ago. It wasn't quite as big as what you boys are dealing with now, but the strategy is the same." Joan's eyebrows had knitted together, and God asked her, "What did I tell you, then, Joan? When you asked if you were going to have to fight Ryan all by yourself?"  
  
"You said that I had to _connect_ , that I had everything I needed." Her eyes looked someplace off in the distance--she was seeing something far away from the desolate roadside in front of them, blacktop and grass. She was remembering.  
  
"Was I right?" God asked.  
  
Joan let out a quiet breath and said, "Yeah," so quietly that Dean barely heard her.   
  
"What does that even _mean_?" Dean asked, nearly shouting at God. "What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to win this?"  
  
"It means that this-- This disconnection you two have, that you have had since Castiel pulled you out of Hell--it's making you weaker. I have forgiven Sam, Dean, and it's time you did, too. You will never win this war if you don't start trusting each other again. Think about what you've got-- _who_ you've got." Dean looked over to Sam. He thought about Bobby and Cas, Ellen and Jo. It was a short list, he thought.  
  
God shook his head, responding to what he'd just been thinking. "You have everything you need."  
  
"So," Sam said, finding his voice. "What now?"  
  
"I'll let you in on a little secret that Lucifer doesn't want you to know," God said. "This war has already been won. The fighting will be hard; it is a war after all, but the end of it has already been finished."  
  
Dean didn't understand. That sounded a little cocky, even coming from God.  
  
God smiled and responded again to exactly what Dean had been thinking, but apparently it was exactly what Sam had been thinking, too, because it was to him that God was now speaking. "There are things you can't possibly understand" God looked at both of them in turn. "Things you were never _supposed_ to understand. But you do need to know that this is not a futile fight. We will win."  
  
"Then why?" Sam asked. "Why do the demons fight?"  
  
"It's a secret that Lucifer hasn't told them. Lucifer doesn't like to admit defeat. But, it's coming for him anyway. He knows that--he has known it for millennia."  
  
"How can you be sure?" Dean asked, still skeptical.  
  
"I'm God," God said with some finality. "You are doing a good job, Dean," God said. "And Sam."   
  
Dean had a million questions on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't find the words for any of them.  
  
God strode over to Dean. "You just need to do as I ask, Dean. Trust me. I know you feel like this whole thing rests on your shoulders, and yes, you have a huge part to play, but you are not alone in this. You were never meant to be." He held out a hand to Dean, and Dean looked at it for a second, unsure. But, he took it; he shook God's hand, and God pulled him in closer, using his other hand to squeeze Dean's shoulder, solid and surprisingly reassuring.   
  
Something inside his gut unknotted, and when he looked at God again, he saw the guy who had his hands just as dirty as Dean's, working on the Impala right next to him.  
  
Then, God looked at his watch and to Joan. "Grace's presentation will be soon. We better get you back to campus." He walked to the little blue car and opened the door. "Oh," he said, and he reached inside, pulling out a brown paper bag. "It's a long way to the mountains," he said. "Figured you might want this." He handed the bag to Dean before getting in the car.   
  
Joan hugged them both and said good bye, wishing them luck. She climbed into the driver's side of the car, and God rolled down his window as Joan started the engine. "I'll be seeing you both soon," he said, and as Joan drove away, God stuck his hand out the window and waved.  
  
Dean looked over to Sam, who looked back at him. Neither one of them had any words to say, so they both just silently watched as the blue car disappeared into the distance.  
  
After a long minute, Sam broke the silence. "What did he give you?" he asked, nodding in the direction of the paper sack.  
  
Dean unrolled the top and looked inside. When he saw what it was, he could not help the grin that spread across his face.  
  
"What is it?" Sam asked, looking a little dubious.  
  
Dean lifted out two clear plastic containers. "He gave us _pie_."  
  
\-- -- -- --  
  
"Okay," Joan said. "That was weird and intense--even for you."  
  
"I know you're confused, Joan, but I needed you there."  
  
"What is going on?" she asked.  
  
"Trust me here--it is nothing you need to worry about. The Winchesters will take care of it."  
  
Joan was worried. From the little bits she did understand, there was a war happening, and it didn't sound good. She wondered who those guys really were, what they did.   
  
"Stop worrying, Joan."  
  
When they got to campus, Joan parked, and they both got out of the car.  
  
"Are you going to the presentation?"  
  
"I'll be there, of course--omniscience. But no, I won't be going with you like this." He used his hands to gesture up his torso. "You need to go and support your friend."  
  
"But--"  
  
"Everything will be fine, Joan. Do as I ask. And, don't forget to call about that summer camp--they'll be having interviews for counselors next month."  
  
"But--"  
  
"Bye, Joan," God said, waving as he walked away.  
  
\-- -- -- -- END -- -- -- --

**Author's Note:**

> So, so very many thanks to berrylicious877, who held my hand the whole way and made sure I didn't freak out too much. I simply could NOT have done this without her! Also to munin_and_hugin and divajess who were lovely betas and encouragers throughout this whole process. I love you, ladies!


End file.
